Final Animation. End of.

************************************************************************************

To see FINAL ANIMATION, please click the link below (and imagine Bob Dylan's 'Blowin in The Wind' playing to it)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpJljL0FP64

********************************************************

Dictionary Definition Photos... analysis and reflection

My piece, ‘Acquaintance and Passer-by’ is a photograph of the postman who has been delivering to my family home for years. It is observing the acceptable relationship in society between persons within a job role. Although he is very friendly, as he is working, there are some unspoken rules about what is OK, and what is not. This is why I felt the photo should be taken through a CCTV camera. This creates a sort of barrier between the viewer and him but also questions the kind of relationship a person has with someone to feel comfortable about capturing them on CCTV.

Reflection and Analysis of Animation

When creating each individual image, I deliberately ensured that an object or pattern continued on from each picture to the next. For example, the chair in ‘Day 8’ to ‘Day 9’ (below). 


This is because I intended for the images to be viewed in a continuous journey, so that when I animated them, one element could animate into the next, as a transition. It is essentially inviting the viewer to see through my eyes and watch the diary playing out to them.



Stop-Motion

I could have chosen to create a drawn animation, which would seem more logical due to much of the content being digital images. But instead, I decided to do a stop motion animation. I feel that some transitions benefit greatly from being made of a real 3D material, such as plasticine. They have a gravitational movement to them which I feel can never quite be reproduced in drawn animation.

End of the Foundation Course... Reflection

Well, I've defiantly found this project has taught me the basics of photoshop. I can use it pretty quickly and do a fair amount with it. Throwing myself into self teaching myself it has worked, although there's probably lots of quicker ways to do the things I've been doing, that I haven't discovered yet.
I spent a lot of time reflecting and analysing my work.



Composition

Each image is essentially a photo montage, with one image usually as the centre point. Everything else in the frame must compliment that image. Photos are layered up and often with filters on them to create the illusion of texture. I play with perspective as each image has its own depth and by layering these, it questions the audience’s viewpoint. This results in the conclusion that the image is not a still life, nor is it a landscape as nothing quite sits right within a setting. This creates some unease within the picture and I hope, brings interest to it.

I often use symmetry in the images, as this usually makes the main image catch the viewer’s attention but then the eye continues outwards, following the symmetry.

Many of the images have a sort of border around then, making them seem contained. The only images which are uncontained are those where my surroundings were the main focus, rather than the objects. However, I prefer those which are contained as it is easier for the eye to settle and observe the meaning of the images.


Colour

Each image has its own colour scheme, based on the main image. I think this is often subconciously influenced by my mood of the moment, not necessarily the mood I felt on the day of the diary.

I tend to enhance the colour of the main object in each image, as this draws the viewer’s eye to it and the background is usually faded or slightly desaturated so that it falls behind. However, the colour plays a much more important role in some of the images, as they directly represent a mood which I have written about in the diary entree for that day.

So I need to think about presentation for the show. My animation is being put on the showreel along with other people, which I hope will be on the big screen in the Mac Room.

I need to create a ‘catalogue’ of 1000 or so words, but think I will merge this and the book which I have kept a diary in. The diary book also contains my plans of how I would turn each day into an image. This therefore also describes each piece, so acts as a sort of catalogue anyway. I will add extra information about each piece from a retrospective position, about the feel of the piece etc.

Need to do some sketches about the layout of this catalogue/diary/visual representation log. 

Also, I will arrange the dictionary definition photos along side part of a dictionary with the word in question highlighted.

Animation section 7

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmeOlc3CORw to view full screen and good quality)

Update

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGMS4bZ3KNo

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdmmB6ShdHI to see in full screen & better quality)

Newest bits of animation. Pleased with how it's going. Need to keep the pace up, due to deadlines and I must think ahead to which angle the camera needs to move to for the next shot.

Nocturnal

Another 5 hours of animating last night. Spent the first half hour just trying to get the lighting the same as the last shot I took the night before. The lighting was in exactly the same places, the camera on all the same settings, and yet it was much more yellow. I tried adjusting the lighting, turning some off, moving some closer or further away... but it was never quite the same. I wonder if it could have been because the last shot I took last night, was when the lamps had been on for 3 hours or so... and I was trying to take the next one having just turned them on. Maybe they become brighter over time. I ended up taking the photos on a different setting on the camera, but tonight I will try and turn the lights on for a while before I begin animating. However, I feel I should keep an eye on them, because they get so hot.


I'm going to try to take up the sides of the blinds in my room, to see if I can get the lighting the same as at night. If I can, then I can get a lot more animating done during the day aswell, to save me actually turning nocturnal.


Also planned 4 new dictionary definition photos. But of course, I can only take these once I have access to my camera again after animating.

Helpful...

Also, my camera has decided that it will reset its photo naming counter back to 0001 every time i turn it off. But if there's already a photo with that name (which of course, there is) it saves it as 0001_1, which then results in it mixing within the other photos. This has resulted in me having to spend alot of time sorting them out. I will now keep a close eye on what and where it is saving the photos.

Animating

(to see full screen click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1_i5pXgPFQ )

Above is the beginning section created during the first night of animating. Last night was day 2 of animating. I decided to animate after the sun has gone down, at around 9pm because the blinds in my room are pathetic, making controlling the lighting impossible during the day. However, working at this time is difficult, being so anti-social. It also means that I cannot use my camera for other work during the day, because it cannot be moved from it's stand incase I accidentally move it, and ruin the movement of the animation.

Had to take some of the photos with my hand in them, propping stuff up. I will now have to edit my hand out, which is very time consuming so I will try to find something thinner to prop stuff up so I can edit it out more easily and quicker.

Test shots

 

Did lots of test photos adjusting composition, which I wanted to show a little of the wall above the photo, and also some of the floor to leave space for animations which use the floor to move to the next photo.

I also adjusted the white balance and decided on 7000k. This also twinned with the lighting, which is proving quite difficult. It must not create a shine on the photo, and I would like the animation to have quite a dark, nostalgic, looking-through-someone's-memories feel to it. I have set up an orangey lamp and smaller more artificial spotlight, which I will have to move around with the animation to illuminate things as they happen.

With the camera set up like this, (not zoomed in at all) the individual elements in the photos that are actually being animated (such as the boat in my test video below) are very small and I'm concerned that it will be difficult for the viewer to spot them being animated. And this is at the point where the camera is closest to the photo throughout the whole animation. So, this would only become more of a problem throughout the animation. Here is my test video of the transitional animation between 'Day 1' to 'Day 2'.

(can be watched full screen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv4O1Ti8DV8)

Can always print the photos off again, larger with a smaller border. Or, I could zoom in, sacrificing some of the wall above the photo, and zoom in even more when the camera is furthest from the photos.

It exists!

The drawing looked like this in the end. (see below) I added a piece of wood at 90 degrees on top of the main wooden piece for the camera stand to be strapped to for extra support. The piece of metal between the bottom piece and the rotating piece began as a large washer. This did stop friction but wasn't wide enough, resulting in it all rocking from side to side a little. But any amount it too much when you're animating. Therefore, replaced this with large circular disk that began life as part of a cafetiere. This is about 8cm diameter, so it does the job alot better. The wooden bottom piece that it all spins on could have done with being a little bigger, but as long as I move it slowly and carefully (which I would be doing anyway), it's perfect. Thank you so much John from the workshop for helping me with this and enabling this to cost me 99p to make!

Sorry about the slightly crude quality photos below. Obviously couldn't take the photo with my nice camera... as it's in the photo...

Camera Dolly

Due to narrow stairs, health and safety and whatnot, I will not be able to animate on stairs. I've now decided to animate a panning shot where the camera travels 3/4 of a 30cm diameter circle. It will also rotate to be facing outwards at all times, to view the animations which will be happening on 3 walls of a room.

(click photo to enlarge)

SIDE VIEW

Click, flash, edit.

Continuing with the gathering photos to create visual representations for each day documented in the diary. I've never before kept a diary so religiously, so reading back at it, its very interesting to observe my reactions to events. Often something happens, I have an emotional reaction to this, and it is then forgotten. But by writing it down, and then illustrating it with an image; in some cases seems to blow it out of proportion, making the emotion exaggerated. 


Reading through it and viewing the images simultaneously, I found that it makes me sound very paranoid. Each thought and emotion throughout my day is usually a quick 'throw-away' kind of affair, that would never usually warrant observation or scrutinising over. 

This brought me to a book titled 'Day to Day Data', which is 'An exhibition of artists who collect, list, database and absurdly analyse the data of everyday life.' One piece of work in particular which stood out, is Therese Stowell's 'Emotional Stimuli and Responses Over 24-Hour Period'. Her work takes the form of complex charts and diagrams from data she gathers over a 24 hour time period. 'I wanted to discover my own predispositions and neuroses, and how my environment shapes my emotions. Does one particular emotional state dominate my day? Or one particular emotional trigger? Am I petty? Judgmental? Do I obsess? How does London impinge on my existence?' (Stowell 2005: 68)




I feel this project has become a very exaggerated view of my personality and I'm anxious to know how a stranger would imagine me, having read my diary and seen my images. It seems unfair that it will be so easy to judge me in a negative light from this.


I was thinking about this whilst walking down The Prince of Wales pier in Falmouth and kept hearing snippets of people's conversations. It seems that I have made public a 3 week snapshot of my life, and maybe I could make it even by stealing 5 words or so from some conversations belonging to the public. I could then record my first impressions based solely on what the person happened to say as I walked past.

Falmouth Interview

For my interview for the BA Animation degree, I took along some new photos of the house scenery I created for Part 2.

Placed the camera on the table and arranged houses to seem as though viewed as a street. I blurred out the background, changed the contrast and added a few lighting effects on Photoshop.

I wanted to give an example of a character within my scenery, but I couldn't find anything readymade that was a fitting scale or in keeping with the style. So I thought it would be interesting to see what it would be like to have a wild bird as my character. 


This photo is four separate photos edited together, each achieved by spreading bird seed, setting up a camera on a small stand in the middle of my garden, looking through the lens and covering the equipment and myself in fake grass and waiting. However, eventually the birds outsmarted me and realised so I had to revert to putting the camera on a timer to take a photo every 10 seconds.

Set up as a cornish coastal-town, which is what they are inspired by anyway.

Close up of a few buildings, to show variety of shape, size, colour and texture. Blurred the background to draw attention to the foreground buildings.

Final Animation Plans

Although I haven't finished creating all 21 'visual representation' images, I'm beginning to plan how I'm going to present the images. I want them to be viewed, not as separate photos, but as one evolving, morphing, continuous movement, as it is a journey of 3 weeks in my life. I thought of a simple slideshow on screen, each image dissolving into the next. This could work as an element in each image continues onto the next, so your eye would be drawn to this (as it has not changed) and lead you to the next image. However, I feel like because this is a project about 3 weeks in my life, it should be presented in a way that also says something about me.

Therefore, I think I will animate a panning shot which scrolls between all the images, linking them by the elements which stay the same.

I am using the intro to the film 'Babe' to inspire my animation. I've always really loved this as an intro to a film, as it's a panning shot featuring a comparatively small area of the farm featured, yet it captures the scene of the residence perfectly and sets the atmospheric feel for the whole film.

 

The lighting is dark, with dimmed spotlights glowing, as the camera passes, on particular images (to keep your attention moving with the camera), creating moody atmospheric shadows. Occasionally, an item is animated, but amongst these are items which sit unmoved, that the camera passes over but the shot is long enough for the viewer to study it and therefore, aids in giving clues about the story. I could add in objects which are personal to me, or which have a relation to the events happening in the images.

The shot is 1 minute 18 seconds, which is a long animation, but as only one element, at most, needs animating at a time, this makes it a little less time consuming.

However, there are only 8 framed items on the 3 walls in this shot. To avoid the animation being too quick to process, I may have to do some very simple animation featuring paper cut-outs between some of the 21 images. 

Searching for a location which I can completely control the lighting, and set up the camera and images for around 2 weeks undisturbed, is a difficult task. 

I quite like the idea of setting up on some stairs, with a new image on each step. The camera would have to somehow move along the handrail, or be on a stand on smaller, make-shift stairs between each step to make the movement smoother.

Sculpture Park

Visited 'The pride of the Valley Sculpture Park' in Churt today. Paths which wind around the trees around a small lake, displaying sculptures mostly hidden amongst the plants. It was very different from viewing the sculptures in a gallery space. I found it much easier to appreciate them in this relaxed atmosphere. It felt as though all the pretension had gone and all you were left with was the art. I found myself drawn to pieces that I could imagine as being characters or that seemed like they might move at any moment.

I love how ivy has begun growing on the hair on this sculpture. It makes the woman seem even more part of nature as her flowing hair echos the falling water beside her.

The completely straight horizontal and vertical lines within these figures makes them really striking and really enables them to work as a series. Their reflective material allows them to fit in amongst nature and the reflection of them in the lake is also really interesting. 

Made completely out of car parts.

Life-size circus elephants sculpture, made of sheet steel.

Series

These photos seem to work better as a series when in black and white. As they are of such different subjects, this colour scheme (or lack of) seems to bring them together as a series. Colour is not essential within any of them so far.

Surveillance.

My diary for Wednesday 23rd March is all about creating a talking point with people; thus taking the step of turning them from passers-by to acquaintances.


DEF: passer-by, n., one who goes by.


DEF: acquaintance, n., the state of being acquainted; a person known but not intimately.


I felt that a perfect example of these two definitions combined is the man who has been our postman for 5 or so years. He always says hello and asks me how uni's going, which makes us acquaintances. However, being a postman, he passes-by (quite literally).

I decided to show this as a video still taken using the security camera outside our house. The camera is there to discourage school kids from jumping on cars, which they like to do, but I became really interested in what the camera unintentionally captured, such as the postman. I gave the photo a cool blue photo filter as by surveying someone in this way seems to reflect the distance between the person and I. The screen becomes a barrier aswell.

I'm Columbo.

Tuesday 22nd March was all about opening up and trusting people. The definition of the word 'communicative' in The Pitman Dictionary seemed very appropriate to this.

DEF: communicative, adj., able and ready to impart information.

The words 'able and ready' sounds to me like a shy person wanting to open up. I wondered how to represent this photographically, and decided that a shy person might indeed want to 'impart information', but would do it in their own, almost anonymous way. Such as a criminal leaving clues, wanting to be caught. 

Scope for activity... sounds like a challenge

Beginning Monday 21st March 2011, my diary entry talks of Falmouth and the ability to think given an open space.


DEF: spacious, adj., vast in extent; roomy; with scope for activity.


This was focusing on the fact that because there IS space, this creates possibility. It made me think of making the best of the space, not letting it pass you by but creating something from it. I therefore made a track for something round to travel on. The structure uses the space to perform its task of getting the satsuma from A to B.

The Pitman Dictionary (New Era Edition)

As a child who asked lots of questions, whenever asking the meaning of a word, I was always told to "Look it up in the dictionary." I hated this because the dictionary in question is my Mother's 'Pitman Dictionary of English and Shorthand (New Era Edition)', which she has signed 1979 but was actually published in 1974. Each definition would raise more questions than it would answer. I realise now that it's due to the evolution of the English language and social speech in our culture. Each definition is almost too in depth and gives, what seems, erroneous examples that imply things that are not necessarily true to the definition, yet they are written in a charming and innocent way which I now love.

I think I will take a couple of words that sum up how I felt on each day and then look them up in this dictionary. The definition, full of charm, usually inspires me to create an image illustrating this in a similar way to the 'Janfamily - Plans for other days' book.

I'm doing this because I wanted to do something more with the information I had gathered as a diary. I decided that the best thing to do, would be to learn from it. Therefore, each photo from the definition should in some way have a moral or thoughtful aspect to it.

DEF: friend, n., one attached to another by affection.

How to make someone grow with you

Discovered a new favourite book. Janfamily - 'Plans for Other Days'

The back of this book says


'This book suggests, it doesn't dictate. It is a list of proposals on how to relate to our surroundings. A manual of moments. It is a life we are living. Being at home, going out, feeling on our own and being together. We look at the simple things that don't get much attention and seek alternatives to routines. We alter and take over what we can touch and feel. With everyday interventions and intuition we try to reclaim our lives. We try to come closer, closer to our own lives and to others.'


Every 3 pages or so, this book addresses a common everyday issue or small social ambition in a 'how to' manual format. It is then illustrated with a couple of photos depicting a solution to this problem using objects from what seems like one single flat.
One page is titled 'How to make a commitment', is then illustrated by a photo of a man stood next to a rack of outfits where each shirt is sewn directly to a pair of trousers, thus making them a set.

Another is titled 'How to reach for the sky', and is illustrated with two photos; one of 4 chairs around a table set with plates, bowls, cups, knives and forks etc and the other of the same objects but rearranged so that they reach the ceiling.
I really like that there is very little, if any, notes explaining the photos. This leaves them open for interpretation by the viewer. For example, for this 'How to reach for the sky' photo, I take from this the moral that although a goal can seem unobtainable, by working hard on it, it can be done. And that something which seems useless can often be changed and make to have a use, even if it is in an unlikely way.

'How to stop time'. (The leaves have been taped back on to the branches)

I think that this book has given me the idea for the next stage of my project. I had been recording my daily events and feelings (in not very much detail, so as to keep the resulting visual image simple enough to be aesthetically pleasing), but want to reuse this data to make a further, and different result.
One idea would be to take a feeling or concern that I've recorded for each day and make it into a new image illustrating a positive outcome from it. I will test this and assess the results and record the difficulties I would find doing this for every day I have recorded so far, which is 18 days.

Complementary Colours

An Image Diary

'The Road is Wider Than Long' us an image diary of a journey made across the Balkans from July to August 1938. The journey was made by two artists; 'Roland Penrose', who was a painter and writer, and 'Lee Miller', who was a fine art photographer. Penrose made the first edition of this book for Miller, drawn from his photographs and notes.


The photographs are accompanied by surrealist poetry and occasional illustrations and embellishments on some of the letters. I spent a lot of time looking through this book. As professional as the photography is, and the poetry complex, it feels very personal and elements of it reminded me almost of a school exercise book belonging to a young girl containing declarations of love in a day-dreaming doodle fashion. The composition is very simplistic by seems as though it is very well considered and thought out.

After researching more about Penrose and Miller, I have found that Lee Miller was most importantly A WOMAN, a model and successful photographer who worked for Vogue at one point in her career. Roland Penrose was her second husband, a British surrealist painter and curator. Miller became bored of her first marriage and life in Cairo, and returned to Paris in 1937 and met Penrose. This book is about their journey in 1938, which makes them a couple who had only known each other a year. This completely explains why the whole book feels so intimate and charming.


I like the little drawings and splashing of colour which make this book so beautiful. I think that my Visual Digital Diary could benefit from some photos being substituted by a drawing. This enables a lot more freedom about the message it's giving and makes it more personal.